“A woodpecker can tap 20 times on 1,000 trees and get no where but stay busy or he can tap 20,000 times on one tree and get dinner.” – Seth Godin via The Dip (The ideas in this blog post largely come from that essential book.)
You shouldn’t be ashamed of quitting.
Quitting isn’t for losers. All successful people quit, often frequently.
Being good at anything means quitting a lot of things.
When you quit you acknowledge that you can’t do everything. You quit so you can focus, which is incredibly powerful.
Why quit?
The world appreciates and rewards people with a purpose–people who strive to be the best in the world at something (world is relative).
To be the best in the world, you need to quit a lot of things so you can be very good at just a few or one thing.
When to quit?
Everything with a reward and that’s valued by society has a dip.
Learning a language, an instrument, how to code, graphic design, or anything else usually isn’t fun (it is as first but that quickly fades). There is rarely instant gratification in the learning process and you’ll have to go through a lot of deliberate practice and learning to get to the point where your skill is valued.
With some occupations, the dip is obvious. For doctors and lawyers, it’s the extensive school. When starting a business, it’s a lot more difficult, but not impossible to know the difference between a dip and cul-de-sac. Knowing the dip is a talent.
The first thing to realize is that there is going to be a dip. When starting your business, after the initial excitement and enthusiasm fades, things get more difficult, cash-flow gets tighter, and you’ll likely have to pivot or reshape some of your ideas.
Dips are valuable. The bigger the dip, the more people who are going to quit. The more people who quit, the more value in pushing through the dip. Embrace and lean into the dip. If it wasn’t there, anyone could do what you’re doing. And where is the value in that?
Is it a dip or a cul-de-sac?
When Henry Ford introduced the Model-T, someone likely invested in horses the day before. Someone opened a Blockbuster after Netflix introduced online streaming. Borders continued expanding despite massive growth from Amazon before finally cutting down. There are laggards to every industry and business. But some are entering a dip and others a cul-de-sac.
Great Entrepreneurs Quit:
Entreprenuers aren’t afraid to quit. If something doesn’t work or have a future, they’ll move on to other ideas. You can’t get emotionally attached to ideas. Accept that something won’t work out and move on. One of the best things Steve Jobs did after returning to Apple from NEXT was to quit producing a lot junk that Apple was turning out. He got down to the core of what they did, so they could focus on being the absolute best in the computer business.
Questions to ask yourself: If you achieved success, what would that look like? Are there examples of people before you? Are you passionate about what you’re doing or are you just trying to get rich quick? Are you the best in your world or on that path? Do you have the resources to get through the dip? Do you have the persistence and will power to push through and make it to the other side?
The image is taken from Seth Godin’s The Dip, which I consider essential reading for all entrepreneurs. If you liked any of the ideas in this blog, read that book.
Connect with me on Twitter: @BenNesvig